Another day, another kuna

I had the morning free today and finally was able to walk around a bit. Zagreb is a nice walking city. But it's an even better sitting at a sidewalk cafe and drinking espresso city. The area around the main city square is packed full of cafes, and nobody cares whether you sit there all day, sipping and talking and watching the people walk by.

Zagreb is apparently the exact dividing line between northern and southern Europe, and between central Europe and the Mediterrean countries. This brings about interesting combinations of behaviors. For example, they zoom down the streets really fast in their little French hatchbacks--cars are quite a hazard to pedestrians, really. But then they are happy to sit for hours, smoking and drinking. They seem a little stern and unsmiling for a few minutes, but once you start to chat they're very warm and gracious.

I had time today to visit dolac (pronounced dolats), the market. Happily, I've managed to hit the city at the tail end of strawberry season and the beginning of cherry season. And, since 1/2 kilo is the smallest amount I was able to communicate to the salespeople, I'm now in possession of quite a bit of the stuff.

And ack! The tv in my room just turned on all by itself, to inform me I have a message. That was startling. I watched tv for a short time last night. Croatian tv is wonderful--if you want to watch terrible programs in American and British English (CSI is here, too), German, Italian, Spanish, and Croatian. Somehow awful shows are more entertaining when you don't speak the language. Plus, European television is chock full of gratuitous nudity.

Emily, I can't remember what they say in the Czech Republic, but it probably is something close to dobar dan. In Russian, you'd say dobree dyen. I think the Slavic languages are all quite closely related.